Sugar maple, Acer saccharum, is native to a wide area of North America, generally from eastern Kansas to southern Ontario and from northern Georgia to Newfoundland. A genetically isolated population of sugar maple exists in the Caddo Mountains of Oklahoma, separated from the rest of the sugar maple range. Because the Caddo Mountain population lives beyond the extreme southwest edge of the main sugar maple range, I believed that it might produce seedling trees with increased tolerance to heat and drought. In the early 1990's, I became interested in beginning a selection program for an improved sugar maple from this source.
In the fall of 1994, I obtained seed of sugar maples collected from the Caddo Mountains. I directed planting of these seeds in seedbeds in a nursery in Boring, Oreg. In the spring of 1995, these seeds germinated and grew into healthy small seedlings which resulted in approximately 100 small trees after two years of growth. During the first months of 1997, I harvested these trees. I saved the thirty largest, most vigorous plants and I destroyed the rest. These thirty trees were placed into cold storage then planted out into a nursery row in May of 1997. In the fall of 1999, I evaluated these trees for fall color and growth rate and marked the best twelve trees. In the spring of 2000, I transplanted these best twelve trees into another nursery location in Boring, Oreg., and I destroyed the remaining eighteen trees. Over the next two years, I regularly evaluated these trees for foliage quality, disease resistance, growth rate, branch structure, and fall color. In February 2002, I selected the best five and planted them out on wide spacing in the same nursery and I destroyed the other seven trees.
Over the next several years, I regularly evaluated these five trees and recorded notes on their performance. My attention was first drawn to the original tree of the ‘JFS-Caddo2’ variety because it had brightest red fall color and also possessed good branch structure, form, and density. Each year, from 2002 through 2008, I propagated small test plots of about ten trees per year of my new variety by T-budding onto Acer saccharum seedling rootstock in nursery rows in both Canby, Oreg. and Boring, Oreg. These trees of the ‘JFS-Caddo2’ variety were evaluated regularly and compared to other varieties of Acer saccharum, including several from the Caddo Mountain seed source. In each case, I grew the test trees of the ‘JFS-Caddo2’ variety for two or three years in the nursery. Trees of the ‘JFS-Caddo2’ variety propagated in the years 2005 through 2008 have been retained in the nursery in Canby and Boring, Oreg. to build up propagation stock. The original tree of my new variety has also been maintained. All trees of the ‘JFS-Caddo2’ variety propagated from 2002 through 2004 were destroyed at the conclusion of testing. This asexual propagation by budding on Acer saccharum rootstock in Canby and Boring, Oreg. has shown that the characteristics of my new ‘JFS-Caddo2’ variety of tree are firmly fixed in successive generations. Testing, evaluation, and comparison of ‘JFS-Caddo2’ with seedlings of the species, including seedlings of the Caddo Mountain seed source and other commercial cultivars of Acer saccharum has convinced me that my new variety of tree has desirable growth and appearance characteristics for landscape use.